Singapore beats Delhi on tourism: Amitabh Kant says India needs to fix municipal governance
If you travel from the heart of Delhi to the airport, roads on either side are littered with plastic. I don't know why Delhi can't do it, says Amitabh Kant
- Dec 14, 2025,
- Updated Dec 14, 2025 9:56 AM IST
Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said India cannot become a global tourism destination without fixing basic issues of municipal governance. He warned that poor cleanliness, long approvals and weak civic-level administration are holding back high-value tourism.
Speaking in a podcast conversation with Groww's Monika Halan, Kant pointed out that Singapore, which is nearly one-third the size of Delhi, attracts four times the number of tourists, largely due to better safety, security and cleanliness. "Without top-class municipal governance, you can't have tourism. That is the key," he said.
"Singapore is just 750 kilometres. It's almost one-third the size of Delhi but attracts four times the number of tourists into Singapore, simply because of two things - safety and security, which is what Dubai also does. The second thing, which is even more important, is cleanliness. We must ensure that our roads etc are absolutely neat and clean and tidy. If Indore can do it, if Mysore can do it, if Surat can do it, so can other cities."
"You travel from the heart of Delhi to the airport, the roads on either side are littered with plastic. I don't know why Delhi can't do it. Mumbai has improved radically in terms of infrastructure, but other cities are doing it. So, you need at all the entry points a massive movement for cleanliness, which is what the prime minister had done, but we need to bring it back centre stage again."
Kant, who is known for reviving Kerala tourism and running the successful ‘Incredible India’ campaign, said tourism has one of the highest multiplier effects among sectors. "For every direct job that you create, you create another 12 to 13 indirect jobs. It impacts the livelihoods of a vast number of citizens," he said.
He said the focus should be on brand marketing and experience creation. "India hasn't done a decade of marketing post-Incredible India, which was launched during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure," he said. "India has a tremendous amount of civilisation. It has some of the greatest heritage sites and it has unique experiences. It needs to be promoted and marketed."
But more than that, he added, governments need to really think big in terms of creating experiences from the point of arrival to the point of departure. "We need many more resorts and hotels, and that is something which the state governments need to do. Today, it requires almost about 55 approvals from the state governments to put up a hotel. All this needs to be scrapped. And states need to make the establishment of infrastructure far more easy and simple at the state level, so that you can put a lot more resources into tourism, which can then have a massive multiplier impact in terms of job creation at the state level."
Kant also warned that India risks exporting tourists rather than attracting them. "India is buying about 2,000 planes between IndiGo and Air India. That means we'll end up sending Indians abroad as tourists instead of bringing tourists into India," he said, adding that the country should aim to attract at least 50–60 million high-value tourists. He stressed that India should focus on high-value tourism rather than mass tourism. “One high-value tourist is equivalent to 20 mass tourists," Kant said.
Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said India cannot become a global tourism destination without fixing basic issues of municipal governance. He warned that poor cleanliness, long approvals and weak civic-level administration are holding back high-value tourism.
Speaking in a podcast conversation with Groww's Monika Halan, Kant pointed out that Singapore, which is nearly one-third the size of Delhi, attracts four times the number of tourists, largely due to better safety, security and cleanliness. "Without top-class municipal governance, you can't have tourism. That is the key," he said.
"Singapore is just 750 kilometres. It's almost one-third the size of Delhi but attracts four times the number of tourists into Singapore, simply because of two things - safety and security, which is what Dubai also does. The second thing, which is even more important, is cleanliness. We must ensure that our roads etc are absolutely neat and clean and tidy. If Indore can do it, if Mysore can do it, if Surat can do it, so can other cities."
"You travel from the heart of Delhi to the airport, the roads on either side are littered with plastic. I don't know why Delhi can't do it. Mumbai has improved radically in terms of infrastructure, but other cities are doing it. So, you need at all the entry points a massive movement for cleanliness, which is what the prime minister had done, but we need to bring it back centre stage again."
Kant, who is known for reviving Kerala tourism and running the successful ‘Incredible India’ campaign, said tourism has one of the highest multiplier effects among sectors. "For every direct job that you create, you create another 12 to 13 indirect jobs. It impacts the livelihoods of a vast number of citizens," he said.
He said the focus should be on brand marketing and experience creation. "India hasn't done a decade of marketing post-Incredible India, which was launched during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure," he said. "India has a tremendous amount of civilisation. It has some of the greatest heritage sites and it has unique experiences. It needs to be promoted and marketed."
But more than that, he added, governments need to really think big in terms of creating experiences from the point of arrival to the point of departure. "We need many more resorts and hotels, and that is something which the state governments need to do. Today, it requires almost about 55 approvals from the state governments to put up a hotel. All this needs to be scrapped. And states need to make the establishment of infrastructure far more easy and simple at the state level, so that you can put a lot more resources into tourism, which can then have a massive multiplier impact in terms of job creation at the state level."
Kant also warned that India risks exporting tourists rather than attracting them. "India is buying about 2,000 planes between IndiGo and Air India. That means we'll end up sending Indians abroad as tourists instead of bringing tourists into India," he said, adding that the country should aim to attract at least 50–60 million high-value tourists. He stressed that India should focus on high-value tourism rather than mass tourism. “One high-value tourist is equivalent to 20 mass tourists," Kant said.